SDS Aqua-Swirl™ protects residential development from runoff pollution.

Overview
The 500 acre “Newlands” residential development at Berewood, Hampshire, is the largest of its type in the UK and, once completed, will accommodate over 2,500 homes, supported by a range of amenities and around 100,000m² of employment land.

Berewood sits on the border of Winchester and Havant, close to the bustling market town of Waterlooville. Construction of the whole development began in 2012 and is scheduled to continue until 2021. This second phase commenced in late 2017.

Phases of consented land are released to housebuilders only after the supporting infrastructure has been installed, for which SuDS are considered a priority. As each phase is launched, further SuDS will be installed, with developers integrating the existing surface water drainage scheme into each of the housing and commercial packages.

What They Did
SDS was required to provide pollution prevention services, while helping to develop a new wetland resource of substantial ecological and amenity value.

SDS worked closely with Consulting Engineers, Mayer Brown, to establish the key design criteria for the site’s sustainable drainage systems. This resulted in the adoption of a “SuDS management train” approach, whereby a series of above- and below-ground drainage techniques are used to change the flow and quality characteristics of the runoff in stages.

In this latest phase, a network of four SDS Aqua-Swirl™ model AS-2 and three SDS Aqua-Swirl™ model AS-3 Hydrodynamic Vortex Separators has been installed. Surface water runoff from the roads and the housing development construction site is first cleaned before entering one of seven separate ponds and swales that have been landscaped into the development.

Results
The manufactured features of the scheme were required to be capable of controlling water not only upon final completion of the development, but also during its periods of construction, i.e. with a substantially higher level of water-bound contaminants than might normally be expected.

Specifying SDS Aqua-Swirl™ hydrodynamic separators gave added flexibility to engineer high-performance water quality protection upstream of SuDS ponds for the latest phase of the Berewood development.

SDS Aqua-Swirl™ was selected due to its ability to surpass Environment Agency required standards, thereby maximising pollution mitigation.

SDS’s bespoke in-house manufacturing facilities, together with a wide choice of product sizes and outlet pipe diameters, allowed us to minimise the sizes of the devices we required. With the added benefit of the Aqua-Swirl’s lightweight plastic construction, we were therefore able to reduce excavation and construction costs significantly.

– Paul Stewart, Mayer Brown, Technical Director

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